A few weeks ago, we released the last of our monarch butterflies, and I've been meaning to share my photos ever since. We had only four caterpillars this year. (Last time we had 19!) We think a few of the caterpillars may have been preyed upon by wasps (because we counted more eggs), so we … Continue reading 2020 Monarch Butterflies
The older I get, the more I find joy in simply being alive. Even when the going gets tough, there's something to be said for being able to experience Life with all its ups and downs. I think it's harder when you are young to see the larger picture of one's life, and it's very … Continue reading April
One of many highlights of our recent trip was being able to visit The Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. If you've been following my blog for awhile, you'll know I've written several times about my younger son's love of birds. He's nine-years-old now, and he's been talking about birds since he was … Continue reading The Cornell Lab of Ornithology
January has been a quiet month around here. It has offered some very cold days -- at least cold to us Southerners -- so it's been a good time to stay inside and get some work done. The boys and I have been doing a lot of birdwatching out our windows, and we finally started … Continue reading January
After finding some black swallowtail caterpillars in our garden earlier this summer, we were very surprised to find giant swallowtail caterpillars too. We were even more surprised because these caterpillars looked like bird poop! That is how my son identified them. He typed "caterpillars that look like bird poop" into a Google search engine, and … Continue reading Raising Giant Swallowtail Butterflies
Earlier this summer, we saw a monarch butterfly laying eggs on our milkweed plant, but when the caterpillars were very tiny, they disappeared. We believe a wasp preyed upon them. That was disappointing, but soon after, we found some other interesting caterpillars in our yard. We identified these as black swallowtails. There were seven. We didn't take … Continue reading Raising Black Swallowtail Butterflies
In August and September, we had a pretty amazing experience. It started because last spring, I tried planting some milkweed seeds. My plan was to grow a lot of milkweed, and then I would order some monarch larvae and try to raise them just like we did for painted ladies four years ago. My ideas … Continue reading Raising Monarch Butterflies
Today is Friday, and we all needed a break, so we decided to take a little hike at our nearby state park, Ft. Yargo. It's only about 15 minutes from our house, and every time we go, we say, "We should come here more often." But we don't go nearly enough. Ft. Yargo State Park … Continue reading Nature Watch: Ft. Yargo State Park
When we were in New Mexico, we stopped along the road to enjoy the view and take photos. If I hadn't of almost stepped on this little guy, I would have never seen him. My boys knew exactly what it was and told me it was a "horny toad." After searching on the Internet, I've … Continue reading Nature Watch: Horned Lizard
One morning I went out to water our garden, and I found this beauty on the green bean leaves. Curiously, I had also seen this moth on our porch one evening, but the colors were much more muted. I don't know if this is a slightly different species or the sunlight was making it shine, … Continue reading Nature Watch: Oakworm Moth
